Seeking to Simplify - Our Simple Homeschool

Well, another school year has begun! I meant to write this Tuesday which was our first day of school but that didn't end up happening. Septembers always seem to be a very busy time! :-)

I have been having fun continuing to go through things and get rid of excess. On Monday evening (just in time for school to start!) I cleaned out our school cupboard where we keep many of the books we are actively using that year. It was fun to get that organized again.

 Above your can see the mess left over from last year and then stuffing in that happened during the summer.

 So much better now! I was able to get rid of a lot of old papers and found a couple of books to move along as well.

This past week was successful in that I got rid of 25 plus things and went through 5 different areas. Hooray!

I was excited to start school again and though the youngest two denied it I think all the kids were kind of excited to start school too.

We keep our homeschooling pretty simple. I don't do any elaborate lesson planning. We don't buy tons of books at the beginning of our school year (that isn't really in the budget nor do we find the need for it). My kids for the most part are using Math books that I used when I was a child being homeschooled. It is Saxon math and it still works well and they have been used by many children now. For writing they do copywork out of the Bible into a notebook and also write letters and essays when I give them that direction. They are using some English books and Spelling books that we had gotten others years or had been given to us. The younger two are also going through some geography books that were given to us.

 For Bible we prefer to read and memorize straight scripture and we make that a big part of our school day. We do also read other edifying books together from time to time. Music is important to us but we don't use any elaborate program. We just do a lot of playing and singing together.

  We love History and read it thought living books just as much as we can. I read it aloud to them often and they read it on their own as well. Science we learn through various books and generally ones that I read aloud to them. Government/Constitution/Civics is learned together through books and discussions.

Mara is doing online college again this year and I didn't end up getting a picture of her first day. This is her senior year in our homeschool. Time does fly quickly.

How is your school year going? How do you make it simple for you?
I do realize when I write about our ways that others might find that overwhelming but it is what works for us. I do think that homeschooling methods though we can truly learn from each other they are highly personal. We each have our different styles and we need to figure out what is the best fit for us.